Is commodity taxation unfair?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fleurbaey, Marc
• 署名单位: Universite Paris Cite; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2006.06.001
• 发表日期: 2006
• 页码: 1765-1787
• 关键词: optimal tax; income tax; commodity tax; social choice; fairness

摘要

In a model where agents have unequal skills and heterogeneous preferences about consumption goods and leisure, this paper studies how to combine commodity taxes and non-linear income tax. It proposes a particular social welfare function on the basis of fairness principles. It then derives a simple criterion for evaluating the social welfare consequences of various tax schedules. Under the proposed approach, the optimal tax should have no commodity tax for some range of consumptions, and income redistribution would feature high subsidies to the working poor. It is also shown that, even when the income tax fails to be optimal, commodity taxes may not improve social welfare. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.